Tea is the earliest pure natural beverage and China is the earliest country that developed and utilized the tea resource in the world. Based on the researches on tea drinking and the physiological effect of the extracts from the tea, it is indicated that tea possesses the function of detoxicating, plasma lipid levels lowering, senility resisting and cancer resisting and inhibiting. The main ingredient that produces these functions is tea polyphenols. Tea polyphenol is one of the main active ingredients in tea, possessing specific strong oxidizing action. It is a kind of most ideal natural oxide-resistant agent and has wide applications in animal and vegetable oils, foodstuff, beverage, aquatic products, dairy products, candy, medical health care products and the like.
Tea flower is the reproductive organ of tea tree. Due to its long growth period, large amount of organic substances are accumulated in its body, especially the contents of tea polyphenols, amino acids, proteins, tea polysaccharides and saponins are very high; In the past, people planted tea tree and consumed tea, and neglected, however, the research and application of tea flower, because it was generally believed that blossoming and bearing fruits of the tea tree are only for the purpose of reproduction. In reality, asexual reproduction techniques have already been applied for the reproduction of tea tree in China. The percentage of fruit and seed of tea tree used nowadays for reproduction purpose is very low and blossoming and bearing fruit are therefore only a heavy burden for the tea tree because it takes 18–20 months for the tea tree to allow differentiation of blossom bud to ripening of tea seed. In this interval of growth period, tea trees blossom while bearing seeds and gestating new lives. Tea flowers compete with buds and leaves for more water, fertilizer and nutrients in their long growth period. The flower and fruit of the preceding year together with the flower of the present year amount to 45–55% of the total flower bud. Such over-prosperous reproductive growth severely inhibits nourishment growth and will results in certain unfavorable effect on the quality of the tea produced. In order to terminate the reproductive growth of the tea tree, tea flowers are picked off manually. Thus, it is feasible to turn the unutilized waste of the past 5000 years into valuable product as well as to raise the productivity and quality of the tea flower.
Tea flowers, the essence of tea tree, begin to bud in very warm season and blossom in frost season. Its flower is white, light yellow and pink in color. The diameter of the flower is 4–9 mm and the petal of the flower is either single lobe or multi lobe and is generally composed of pentagon to enneagon shaped petals. Tea flower is a kind of bisexual flower exhibiting cross-pollination. There are 200–300 androeciums in the petal. Pistils are situated in the center of the androecium. The ripened tea flowers could secrete honeydew having attractive fragrance.
Although tea flowers have a long growth period, they are quite tender. Selecting and picking the tea flowers and then transporting them and processing them into products seem to be a simple and yet complicated productive processing course. In these multiple processing steps, it seems to be quite simple, there are, however, contain many scientific requirements. If any of the steps is not operated according to rigorous technique, the active substance of the tea flower will possibly be dissipated and evaporated and thus will render the flower to be a waste having only externality but no active ingredient. Tea flower is the essence of the tea and the purpose of the picking of the flower is to obtain the essence of the tea. To retain the ingredients of the tea flower to a maximum degree in the productive processing steps, the key seems to rely solely on the proper handling of the productive processing and on the properly applying science to producing techniques. For the moment, there is no report on the processing method of tea flower in prior art.